Introducing Filio

For anyone who missed the Filio launch this week, we’ve put together this article to help you find out about our new teacher development software. To log in to your account, use the email linked to your IQBar account: https://www.filio.co.uk/account/login. You can find the starting password on Wechat.

What is Filio?

IQBar has recently teamed up with Filio to offer all contracted or long term buddies an account. What does this mean? It means that Buddies can look at their progress each week, set their own goals and objectives and create their own development strategy. Filio is currently used in schools and academies across the UK and is noted for making progress and feedback simple and rewarding for teachers.

How does it work?

Currently IQBar offers feedback sessions for Buddies once a month with Daniel, our Teaching Quality Manager. Every week, Daniel watches a session from each Buddy and makes a note on what was done well and what could be improv

ed to ensure that teaching standards remain high and are equal across the board. The problem with this however, is that only having the follow up feedback sessions once a month leaves a long period of time where Buddies can feel they don’t know their progress or how best to improve.

Anyone who has a background in teaching will know all about teaching standards. IQBar has created a series of teaching standards which provide the foundations for teaching on the platform, forming the basis of all feedback and development for Buddies. There are currently eleven standards on the system which are then broken down into the different areas the IQBar team feel are important to maintaining excellent teaching, with further explanation and examples.

Here are the eleven categories currently on Filio:

Demonstrate appropriate and professional presentation at all times (TS01)

Communicate effectively and professionally, demonstrating professional conduct at all times (TS09)

Be responsible for own Continuing Professional Development (TS10)

Promote principles of safeguarding (TS11)

Around once every two weeks, Daniel will drop in and observe each Buddy's sessions, leaving feedback in the Portfolio section. From this, Daniel can set objectives for Buddies but, more importantly, Buddies can set their own objectives and decide how best to improve. As a teacher it is important to be able to pinpoint your own areas for improve much more so than being told where you need to make changes. You can find the observation section at the top tabs bar.

As objectives are completed and standards are met, the colours down the side will change from red, to orange, to green. This gives you an easy visual of your progress and what needs to be completed.

At the end of the monthly feedback session, a grade will be given by Daniel about how well you have met each standard's requirements. Each standard will have its own score which combines to give you an overall grade. There are five, very broad grades one can achieve; 'below minimum, at minimum, adequate, good, outstanding'. Of course, no teacher is perfect and there is always room to grow in a different area so don't be disheartened if you do not achieve outstanding in all areas. After all, it would be boring to be perfect and have nothing to work towards!

Filio will not only be about improvements however, but also praise. Sometimes it’s hard to know when you’re doing something well, so Filio means you will get almost instant acknowledgement. Maybe you really engaged a Bready and they left the session feeling inspired? Perhaps you have some excellent props or displays in the background? All these will be noticed and celebrated through Filio. The system also allows the Buddy or Daniel to upload ‘evidence’ of all improvements and highlights in the portfolio section. You can do this at any time about any of the standards.

If you haven’t already done so, log into Filio and have a look through the website! You will see a section for messages, this will mean that any questions you have regarding feedback can go directly to Daniel. Have a look through the standards and set yourself an objective - it’s never too soon to startEach page contains a help section to guide you through the system however, if you have any further questions about the software or teaching using Filio, please contact Daniel or Sarah.

IQBar is invested in its teachers and creating a caring and developing teacher environment. Filio means that as a team we can look at our own progress and take control of our teaching.

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What is IQBar?

At IQBar, our aim is to offer a high quality online teaching experience to all of our students, whether it is English conversation practice or utilising your academic degree to help them achieve exceptional grades at school. If you love to teach and aspire to be completely in control of your work life schedule, IQBar is the place for you! .